REMEP Partner Institutions

REMEP Partner Institutions

Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology in Halle (Saale)

The Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISA) at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) focuses on contemporary developments related to new forms of globalization and localization, and hence on the emergence of a world society with transnational networks and all-embracing mediatizations. The three chairs of the ISA reflect this agenda in their further specifications. REMEP faculty member Richard Rottenburg currently works on ‘Law, Organization, Science and Technology’, Burkhard Schnepel on ‘Diaspora, Migration and Transnationalism’, and Thomas Hauschild on religion, politics and the geography of the Mediterranean and Europe. Both the MPI for Social Anthropology and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg closely cooperate in the Graduate School ‘Society and Culture in Motion’ and the ‘Centre for Interdisciplinary Area Studies – Middle East, Africa, Asia’ (ZIRS). This includes the participation of the directors and senior staff in lecturing. Since 2010 the institutions have jointly organized a post-graduate course in social anthropology open to all PhD candidates. REMEP PhD students in Halle, being fully integrated into different research units at the MPI and ISA, have developed a strong internal cohesion and their own REMEP identity, and have adopted an academic culture of comparative and interconnected research.

Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (MPICC) in Freiburg

The MPICC is dedicated to comparative normative and empirical research in the fields of crime, criminal law and criminal justice. The Institute consists of the Department of Criminal Law (Ulrich Sieber) and the Department of Criminology (Hans-Jörg Albrecht). Placed at the intersection of law and social sciences with a strong comparative focus, the research agenda of the MPICC is interdisciplinary in scope and international in scale. On this basis, the departments work together to address normative and empirical questions of crime, criminal law, and national, supranational and international crime-control policies. The goal is to understand the interdependencies of crime, crime control and criminal law, as well as to support worldwide the reform of criminal law and crime-control policies. The broad disciplinary scale and scope of the research agenda of the MPICC is reflected in the multidisciplinary and international composition of the Institute’s staff, which comprises lawyers, sociologists and psychologists from different countries within and outside Europe. This interdisciplinary environment is facilitated by an international structure in which the major regions of the world are divided, for analytical purposes, into country sections. Within this structure, the expertise of many decades of comparative research on criminal justice systems of the world has been accumulated. Present projects of the MPICC that relate to the topic of the IMPRS REMEP focus on the death penalty, hate crimes, drug markets, organized crime, terrorism and victims of war, as well as on criminal law and state crime, honour and criminal law, the implementation of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, and conflict resolution strategies in different cultural setting.

Freiburg University School of Law

Criminal law studies at Freiburg University School of Law focus on legal theory, comparative legal studies and (international) commercial criminal law. These three fields are closely linked with each other. In line with this strategy, research in legal theory focuses mainly on the analysis of the supranational foundations for legitimating criminal law, whereas comparative legal sciences study and compare specific regulations and the structural fundaments of regulatory systems. Historical and philosophical aspects constitute the starting point for these considerations. Studies in (international) commercial criminal law concentrate on challenges and problems of criminal law occurring in a globalized and transnational economy. Research is based on legal theory, comparative legal studies and the empirical basis of criminal law; it profits greatly from the interaction with the MPI Freiburg. Because of the importance of basic research in comparative legal studies and (international) commercial criminal law, the University of Freiburg created a completely new branch of criminal law studies. In addition, the Freiburg University School of Law carries out intensive research in the fields of criminal processes and criminal sanctions and sentencing, which are of great importance in criminal practice. Close cooperation with the MPICC ensures additional synergetic effects.

Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt (Main)

The Max Planck Institute for European Legal History regards as one of its most important tasks contributing to the basic research in legal studies, social sciences, and historical humanities through historical research based on theoretical reflection in the field of law and other forms of normativity. Its research focuses on historical law modi, their constitution, legitimation, transformation and practice. Particular attention is paid to the positioning of ‘law’ in the field of other normative orders. The development of perspectives on global history enhances and extends the research tradition of legal history in Europe. Under the direction of Thomas Duve (since 2009) and Stefan Vogenauer (since 2014), the institute is now extending its scope to other regions. Global perspectives should help to overcome the analytical division of areas, to critically evaluate some fundamental assumptions of European legal history, and to present Europe as a global region from a legal historical viewpoint. Many research projects are carried out with universities and research institutions in Germany and abroad. Guest researchers undertaking research residencies at the Institute provide it with a connection to a diverse range of environments for academic discourse. The Institute’s research, publications, international graduate schools and co-operation initiatives make it a reference point for the national and international scientific community. Current projects of particular interest for the topic of the IMPRS REMEP deal with the history of crime, criminal law and criminal justice, the development of state-based systems of formal punitive control and the politics of public order and public security from the Late Middle Ages to the early 20th century. Specific projects explore the legal responses to political crime and the formation of transnational criminal law and security regimes from the 18th century onward.